Painting presentation to The Queen Mother - Yester Year October 27

Painting presentation to The Queen Mother - Yester Year October 27

TO COMMEMORATE her Golden Jubilee as patron of the Aberdeen Angus Cattle Society, The Queen Mother was presented with a painting of one of her herd with calf at foot by the society.

The oil painting was done by local artist Jackie Thompson, Rattray, Blairgowrie, who has only recently graduated from art school. During her final year, Mrs Thompson (pictured with the Queen Mother) specialised in animal portraiture and the search for thesis material led her to the breed society, which in-turn led to this once-in-a-lifetime commission.

She travelled up to the Castle of Mey twice to view her subjects and with colour photographs as an additional guide, mrs Thompson completed the portrait in four weeks.

10 years ago

-It was feared that farmers could be forced to pay half the costs of any future food and mouth outbreak and say goodbye to gold standard compensation for pedigree animals under radical new proposals being considered by Defra.

A spokes man for Defra said: "A working party has been working for some months looking at the issue of insurance and levies with regard to any future outbreak of food-and-mouth."

NFUS said they were taking the proposals seriously.

-Farm animals were left stranded on a number of units in 2002 after torrential rain swamped much of Scotland.

The downpour put paid to the Scottish Ploughing Championships. The Scottish Borders bore the brunt of the storm. Flood warnings were issued in 13 areas of the country and many roads were closed.

-It was thought a new milk pricing system could be on the cards for Britain's dairy farmers which would address the seasonality of milk production.

Dairy Farmers of Britain, First Milk and Milk Link announced a joint commitment to devise new, market-related pricing systems. The new system would replace the existing structure of so-called seasonality payments, which apply bonuses of penalties to all milk produced at different times of the year.

25 years ago

-In 1987 it was said by the Scottish Goat Federation that the future for goat keeping in general had never been so good.

The chairman said the SGF was anxious to serve the whole of the goat industry in Scotland, and to be a central organisation to assist the numerous smaller goat clubs in the country.

-In a similar vein to 2012, the public were concered over the siting of new forest bocks and said an urgent re-think of forestry planning was needed.

Roger Carr, chairman of the Countryside Commission said a Cosla report "makes compelling arguments which Government must consider if the forestry industry is to develop without conflict with conservation of the Scottish countryside."

-It was written that American farmers were being paid by their government in 1987 for not harvesting crops on more than one-seventh of their normal cropland area. The following year the idled cropland area would rise further, the US Department of Agriculture forecast.

The US harvested area reached a peak in 1981 of 387 million acres, when there were no government programmes to pay farmers for reducing their harvests. In 1987 the harvested total shrunk to 330 million acres.

50 years ago

-Discussions at an NFU meeting in 1962 showed milk producers were living in a divided house in which one faction is suspicious of the other.

The impression was that producers do not know what they want, some were for sticking to things as they were and some backed a quality payment scheme and others flirted with the quota system.

It was plain enough, however, that the Scottish Milk Marketing Board's proposed scheme to pay on a quality basis would not go on without a considerable amount of argument and opposition.

-The 1962 Kintyre Agricultural Society's autumn show was one of the most successful in recent years. The entries, well up on the previous year, were the second highest in the history of the show and it was well attended.

100 years ago

-Popular Household columnist Gretchen gave this recipe for poached eggs on macaroni: "Break some macaroni into suitable pieces, wash it well, then put it into a fireproof dish with a slice of butter at the bottom; pour enough milk over to cover it well, and put it into the oven to bake, stirring it now and again from the bottom. When almost cooked, add some brown gravy, pepper and salt and put it back into the oven till quite tender. Lay some poached eggs over it, sprinkle the surface with grated cheese, and serve at once. If preferred, the gravy may be omitted at more milk used in its place."

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